Hour Of Darkness

Forty-Three

‘Well,’ Mary Chambers began, as she gazed around the conference table in the Edinburgh police headquarters building, ‘this is quite a team to be investigating one disreputable old woman’s murder. Is that why we’re not making any progress? Too many cooks, is that it?’

Five police officers gazed back at her: Detective Inspectors Sammy Pye and Jack McGurk, Detective Sergeants Harold Haddock and Karen Neville, and Detective Constable Jackie Wright, who had not been summoned but had been included by Pye in recognition of the sound work she had done. There was a seventh person in the room, a slight, earnest woman in her late twenties; she was a newcomer to them all and had introduced herself as Anna Jacobowski, a senior scientist with the Scottish Police Forensic Service.

Jack McGurk frowned. ‘I don’t see that, ma’am,’ he protested. ‘We’ve all had distinct roles in an investigation that was complex from the very beginning. Speaking personally, I don’t think my team have stepped on anybody’s toes. If Karen hadn’t been on the ball and thinking clearly, it would have taken us much longer to match the blood in the Caledonian Crescent flat to the Cramond Island remains.’

‘Maybe so,’ Chambers admitted.

‘I’ve even got a bonus to report,’ he added. ‘Karen and DC Singh were diverted there by Mr Mackenzie when they were on their way to investigate a hit and run in Gorgie Road. Tarvil went back to that investigation and spoke to the witnesses. They told him that the car that hit the girl was going like a bat out of hell, “Like a getaway car”, according to one of them who’d been sober enough to give them the make and model of the vehicle. . it was a Nissan Qashquai. . and a partial number that showed it was five years old, registered in the city.

‘He cross-checked all possibles with the DVLA, and Patrick Booth’s name jumped out. We’ve got the vehicle impounded, so it was plain sailing after that. We can do him for that as well.’

‘And we will,’ the head of CID said. ‘How’s the victim?’

‘She’ll live. Tarvil gave her the name of a lawyer, so she can sue Booth for compensation for her injuries. She won’t have any problem there; the one legal thing the guy did was keep his tax and insurance up to date.’

‘Does Booth know yet?’ Sauce Haddock asked.

‘Not yet,’ McGurk replied. ‘No rush.’

‘It’ll be a nasty surprise for him.’ Sauce laughed, vindictively. ‘Another few years down the road just when he thought he was getting off lightly for shooting wee Vicky.’

‘You have to play it by the book, Jack,’ Chambers declared. ‘I’m not messing with Frankie Bristles. If you have enough to charge him, do it, and disclose to her.’ She nodded, then continued.

‘Okay, you’ve made your point, Acting DI McGurk. This is a bugger of an investigation and I can justify the resources we’ve devoted to it, whoever asks me. My main concern was that most of it’s gone off in the absence of the CID coordinator. He should have been doing all along what I’m doing this morning but I’m happy that we are where we’d have been if he had been here.’

‘No comment.’ Haddock’s voice was barely more than a whisper, but she picked it up.

‘No,’ the DCS growled, ‘and there’d better not be, or you’ll be getting the coffee for the rest of your effing career.’

‘Sorry, boss,’ he muttered as Pye reached out and cuffed him lightly round the ear, while nodding towards Jacobowski, who was seated next to him, staring determinedly at the table. Strangers present, he mouthed.

As if she had picked up on it, Chambers turned to the scientist. ‘Anna,’ she said, ‘thanks for joining us. You’re a welcome change from Arthur Dorward.’ Pretty little thing, she thought. ‘You’re also the lynchpin of this investigation. Without your work we’d have nothing, so it’s appreciated. What have you got for us?’

‘Thanks, Chief Superintendent,’ the civilian replied. ‘What I don’t have is a full picture, but we’re getting there. However, it is very difficult. The Caledonian Crescent flat is like a DNA stockpot. When we went in there we were told that the victim has lived alone, and had a small circle of friends, so we didn’t expect to find evidence of the presence of any more than a dozen individuals; the dead woman herself, the police officers who attended, four in all, the meter reader, the law office clerk, the niece, her child and her partner, and the lady downstairs, since DS Neville said she’d claimed to have been in there to borrow sugar.’

‘And have a general nose around,’ Karen volunteered.

‘No doubt,’ Jacobowski agreed, ‘and she did. We found her DNA and fingerprints in the kitchen, the living room, and in the main bedroom.’ She paused. ‘It’s amazing what personal traces can survive, you know. I say this because of the major problem that we encountered. When we started to analyse the samples we took, at least half of them didn’t match up with anyone. . and we’re a long way from being finished with our analysis and comparison.’

‘Maybe she had a party we weren’t told about,’ Haddock suggested.

Karen Neville shook her head. ‘No way; Mrs McConnochie would have known, and she’d have mentioned it.’

‘She’s not infallible,’ the scientist said. ‘She didn’t tell you about the flood.’

Neville frowned. ‘What flood?’

‘The one the lawyers told us about when we asked. We noticed early on that the kitchen and the bathroom had been completely refurbished and that the living room had just been redecorated. Mr Dorward said we should ask the property administrators about it, rather than bother you. They told us that the flat directly above had a burst pipe, about three weeks before Miss Spreckley disappeared.

‘The damage was quite extensive; the ceiling came down, the kitchen units were warped and the bathroom carpet was ruined. Miss Spreckley kicked up a huge fuss, they said, and demanded that everything be put right.

‘Rather than wait for the neighbour’s insurers to get the finger out, the administrators acted straight away. They called in plasterers, plumbers, painters, carpenters and carpet fitters, and the job was expedited. It was completed the Friday before the estimated date of the woman’s death, apart from the new bathroom carpet, which hadn’t arrived.

‘We still don’t know for sure how many people were in there, far less who they were.’

‘What do you know?’ McGurk asked.

‘We can put Booth, Vicky and the child in the house. Specifically we have Booth’s prints on the surface of the victim’s dressing table and on every drawer and cupboard door in the place. He gave it a real going-over. Now we have his footwear we can prove he stood in the blood as well; he didn’t do so when it was fresh, though. Only after it had congealed.’

‘Why was Booth so thorough, Sammy?’ Chambers asked. ‘What’s your thinking on that?’

‘Drugs,’ Pye replied, instantly. ‘Booth told us that Bella never handled the merchandise herself, only the money, but I reckon that when he found the flat in the state it was, he decided to make sure there was nothing there that would excite our narcotics people.

‘Speaking of whom, boss,’ he added, ‘I’ve been thinking, it’s one thing me running an investigation within our own force, but from what we know, this is a new supply route into Scotland of a factory-made drug. Should we not be telling the Drug Enforcement Agency?’

‘Yes, we should,’ she replied. ‘Next question: have we done so? Answer, yes we have. The ACC’s briefed Mr Martin, informally, to find out whether they’ve been holding out on us, as much as anything else. His response was that it’s the first they’ve heard of it. He’s happy to let us carry on but he wants to be kept informed. What have you got to tell him?’

‘Nothing definite; but we do have Booth, singing his heart out in exchange for not being charged with Bella’s murder. Now we have the hit-and-run to hold over him as well, maybe he’ll sing a little louder. . if he knows any more of the song, that is. Meantime, DC Wright’s been looking for Spanish credit cards in the area where he told us that he met the van driver. Jackie, tell the DCS how it’s been going.’

The young detective flushed, and clutched her notebook to her like a comforter. ‘I’ve been surprised by how many Spanish people there are in Britain, ma’am,’ she began, ‘even with a search centred on places like Durham, Cheltenham, Wigan, Stoke and Scunthorpe.

‘Given what Booth told us about the van having goods in it, our thinking is that the driver’s a person who does deliveries of furniture and other stuff to and from Spain for ex-pats and people with Spanish holiday homes, and that the locations for the meetings were dictated by wherever she happened to be picking up or dropping off. I checked with the British Consulate in Madrid; they told me there are hundreds of people doing that sort of thing, not just Brits but French, Belgians, et cetera, and that none of them register as businesses.

‘I’ve been looking at time periods two days on either side of each meeting; that’s thousands and thousands of transactions, but I’ve had eighty-two different hits of people using Spanish chip and pin cards in those vicinities. Seventeen of them have been British names, and I’ve been most interested in these.

‘The problems are that no individual’s shown up twice, and even more significant, not one of them has been a woman.’

‘Nevertheless,’ Chambers countered, ‘can you check those seventeen British names through the card issuer?’

‘In theory, yes,’ the DC replied, ‘if every card links to a bank account. Road tax in Spain’s paid to the local council, not the state, so the bank will have direct debit records that show the vehicle make and registration number. In practice, not in a hurry and maybe not at all: the Spanish are as keen on data protection as we are, and we’d need a court order, in Spain.’

‘Leave that with me,’ the head of CID told her. ‘Drug Enforcement may be able to help us. Keep looking for those names; if someone shows up twice, flag it up. The woman could be married; she could be flashing her husband’s plastic. That’s the trouble about chip and pin, too bloody easy to do that. Good work so far, Jackie.’ The girl beamed and turned an even deeper shade of red.

‘Sammy,’ Chambers continued, ‘has Booth been able to tell us any more about the driver than he did when I was there?’

‘Not a lot,’ Pye replied. ‘Their meetings usually lasted less than a minute. She’s middle-aged, he said, white but tanned. She wears a parka or a hoodie in the summer, and a woollen hat as well so he can’t help with hair colour. Also, he said she always wears big glasses.

‘As for her language, he says he wasn’t sure; she said very little. Sometimes in English, sometimes in Spanish, which he understands a wee bit, thanks to a cellmate from Valencia last time he was inside. The one thing he did say was that she sounds husky; not like a smoker he said, but deep, throaty, sexy-like.’

‘He’s sure it is a woman?’

‘Certain, he says. But I don’t think he fancies her somehow. I asked him why he was so spooked. “You haven’t fuckin’ met her, pal,” was what he replied.’

‘Hopefully we will, before too much longer.’ She stopped, as she saw Jacobowski, hand raised like a child in school. ‘Yes, Anna.’

‘About the drug,’ she replied. ‘I haven’t been involved personally, because I’m up to my ears in Caledonian Crescent, but another part of the service has been working on the traces that were recovered from Booth’s flat. His poor girlfriend really didn’t make a very good job of getting rid of it.

‘They can confirm it’s methamphetamine and that it’s pretty good stuff. The principal ingredient is ephedrine, rather than pseudoephedrine, brewed up in combination with red phosphorous, iodine and water. If you know what you’re doing, crystal meth can be produced in your garden shed, or it can be made, and is made by criminal cartels, in industrial quantities. If you don’t know what you’re doing. .’

She paused and her eyes went somewhere else for a second or two, then fixed on Haddock. ‘Do you like Bruce Springsteen?’ she asked, suddenly.

He smiled at the unexpected question. ‘The Boss? Absolutely: he’s a hero.’

‘Do you know a song called “Sinaloa Cowboys”?’

‘Yeah, I think so.’

‘Then listen to the lyric. It’s about two Mexican brothers synthesising methamphetamine in a shack, and it doesn’t end well. The process is very dangerous, and some of the chemicals used are highly volatile. Explosions and fires are common. This stuff, though, it’s pretty refined; it’s been made by a proper chemist. . or someone with similar skills.’

‘Where are you going with this?’ McGurk asked, his curiosity evident.

‘Spain,’ she replied. ‘In our analysis, we found something that just shouldn’t be there, traces of grape residue. This is how good we are, people.’ She ventured a small smile of pride. ‘We’ve identified it as a variety known as Pedro Ximenez, unique to Spain and used in one of its best known exports. If you want to trace this stuff to source, you should be looking in Andalusia, in a facility that’s been used, and maybe still is, in the production of sherry.’

‘Indeed?’ Chambers said. ‘If we’re meant to be impressed by that, Anna, then we are.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Have you told the SCDEA?’ she asked.

‘Mr Dorward’s doing so this morning. My colleagues only completed their analysis last night.’

‘Then I’d better speak to them, since we’re looking for the same people.’

‘Provided,’ Pye intervened, ‘that Bella Watson’s murder is related to her involvement with the supply of drugs. That was Booth’s immediate assumption when he saw her flat, and it’s been ours too, but the van driver is the only person in the chain that we know about.’

‘It’s still a reasonable assumption, boss,’ Sauce Haddock countered.

‘Granted, but it doesn’t preclude other options. Bella had a historic feud with the Holmes family; Perry Holmes’s son’s just been released from jail.’

‘And Bella Watson’s grandson’s working for one of the Holmes companies,’ Chambers observed. ‘What the hell’s that about?’

Pye laughed, shaking his head. ‘I do not know, boss, but it’s time we found out.’

‘I agree, Sammy. But it’s not necessarily part of the murder investigation, and I want you and Sauce focused on that. You concentrate on Hastie McGrew; find him and invite him to have a chat with us.’

‘Will do.’

‘Jack, Karen, I want you to have a word with young Mr Hicks, but without his employers finding out that they’ve got a Watson in their nest. They might not take too kindly to that.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ McGurk said. ‘We’ll come up with a spurious reason for interviewing him.’

‘We can be heir hunters,’ Neville suggested. ‘You know who I mean, those people you see on telly looking for relatives of folk who’ve died without leaving a will, then signing them up and taking a cut of the proceeds.’

‘That sounds like a plan,’ Chambers agreed, ‘as long as you identify yourself properly as soon as you’ve got the kid on his own.

‘Right,’ she continued. ‘In the meantime, I’ve been thinking. It’s time I contributed something positive given that I’m supposed to be leading this department. We know that Bella Watson was murdered in her own kitchen. We have the plausible assumption that she was removed from the flat in a trunk that Booth said was missing from her bedroom, and that he said it would take two people to move. Agreed?’

Pye and Haddock nodded, in tandem.

‘Good. So there they are, these two people, downstairs with a bled-out corpse in a makeshift coffin. . in the middle of the night, I would guess, otherwise the woman downstairs with the built-in radar would be bound to have heard them. What do they do next?’

‘They have a vehicle,’ Sauce murmured. ‘And not a saloon car, maybe not even an estate, because the ottoman thing is going on for five feet wide and at least a couple of feet deep. Possibly a van.’

‘Possibly the same van that Patrick Booth saw?’ Chambers continued. ‘It’s a long shot, but we’ll never know unless we prove it or eliminate it. I’d suggest that you go looking for Spanish bank cards in Scotland and as far south as Newcastle around the time we believe Watson was murdered. And while you’re at it, if the traffic CCTV tapes are still available that far back. .’